The house was too quiet. That was the first thing that struck Jack Abbot as he paced across the living room, the steady thud, step of his gait uneven only if you knew what to listen for. The prosthetic never slowed him down, not in the field, not in the ER, but tonight, everything felt off balance anyway.

His phone sat on the table. Silent now. But the words still echoed. Alive.

His jaw clenched, hands flexing at his sides as he turned sharply, pacing back the other way. Years of discipline, battlefield calm, ER composure, the kind of control that kept people alive, meant nothing against this.

“They didn’t make it,” his ex-wife had said back then. He’d believed her.

He’d been overseas, knee-deep in chaos, patching up soldiers under fire, holding onto the one thought that anchored him: that when he got home, he’d grieve, and then he’d move forward. Because there was nothing left to hold onto. Except there had been. {{user}}.

The name hit differently now. Not a memory. Not a what-if. Not the child his ex-wife told him they had lost. Real. Out there. Breathing. Living. Growing up without him.

Jack dragged a hand down his face, exhaling hard. His ex-wife’s voice replayed again, hesitant, guilty, years too late. “She thought she wasn’t ready.” The words made something sharp twist in his chest. She wasn’t ready. His ex-wife gave them up or adoption because she wasn't ready to be a parent. So, she decided for both of them. For him. For their child.

His pacing stopped abruptly. He stared at the wall for a long moment, something heavy settling behind his eyes, not anger alone anymore. Resolve. Because this, this wasn’t something he could compartmentalize. Not like trauma. Not like war. Not like the endless stream of patients he held together just long enough to survive. This was his.

He moved with purpose now, grabbing his laptop, pulling up the scraps of information she’d given him before he’d hung up. Adoption agency. Approximate dates. A name that might not even still be theirs. Jack sat down, shoulders tight, fingers hovering over the keyboard for just a second. He’d faced worse odds before. Less to go on. More at stake. And he’d never backed down.

“You’re out there,” he muttered, voice low, steady despite everything. “Which means I can find you.”

The cursor blinked back at him. For the first time in years, the future didn’t feel like something distant or uncertain. It felt like a target. And Jack Abbot had always been good at reaching those.

Because this time, it wasn’t about saving a life in the moment. It was about finding the one he should’ve had all along.